Whenever I am asked about typical Venetian recipes, my list starts from “bigoli in salsa“.
Perhaps to me, this dish of bigoli is the pasta dish par excellence, the first I think of when I see spaghetti on the shelves of the pantry, and what I’ve probably eaten more in my life, even more than the evergreen pasta al pomodoro.Bigoli are a type of thick, fresh spaghetti made just with two basic ingredients: whole wheat flour and water, and their origin seems to date back to the 1600s.
Originally the fresh dough was kneaded at home and then hand-pressed through a specific pasta machine with large holes to get some very thick and long spaghetti, but in more recent times it’s common practice to use the dry bigoli you can find at the supermarket. Continue Reading

During these first days of 2018, which I am living as in a retreat – a new time in which I can finally explore the pleasure of doing nothing, I’ve been thinking of everything 2017 has given me and what it has taken away from me.
It was a decisive year for me, from many points of view, and I did not really realize it until I could stop and relax completely, finding myself here, in front of a crackling fireplace in Tuscany. Continue Reading

My dear friend Valentina (Hortus!) wrote a book, and after a year of hard work, research, intuitions, doubts, shared inspirations and support behind the scenes, today I can flip through its pages and feel proud almost as if it was my own cookbook!
In these pages, I can even see the story of our friendship, together with many nice recipes and pictures, timed by seasons and food, the same who Valentina sometimes cooked for me as well.
I recognize her mother’s hands mixing the pasta dough, surfaces and textures of old tables where I happened to eat and/or shoot, flowers and plants of her garden, props (including also some of our TheFreakyRaku ceramics!!), details of her life… of which I am lucky enough to be part of.Continue Reading

I don’t know what silence is, I said, while I am floating in the void.
It looks like Paradise – however you call it – the place where we go afterwards, doesn’t it? Francesco smiles under the wet scarf.
I am tasting that new and inconsistent taste, the fog, the dense fog which enters the nose and rests on the tongue, a bit salty.
When you’re inside it, you can’t escape. It’s like being in a dream and trying hard to wake up, in vain, until the doubt of being already awake arises as an upsetting possibility.
My eyes are wide open but there’s nothing to see. Continue Reading

You know that sometimes, when so much happens in very little time, you just don’t know where to start, when it’s time to tell it. Well, that time has come.
Last month was one of the most intense times of my life, not only because I almost always travelled alone but also because I never knew what to expect.
I adore being organized and prepared for life (whatever it may bring me) but this time I left thinking – more or less – “whatever happens will be ok”.
And, you know, I ended up thinking that it is exactly when expectations are not clearly defined that we can be really surprised – such a surprise that makes your belly ache.
I will remember this autumn as one of the most difficult of my life, not only for all the trips I am going to tell you about and for the new portfolio I have published, but also for some personal happenings that have pierced my stomach as a lance. I will not add anything else, this is all I have been able to do and say lately and, although it is still very painful, I only want to jump backwards to tell you about the wonderful places I was so lucky to visit.Continue Reading

Come, Grandmother, and sit next to me in my garden. We shall have breakfast under the vine, and we shall see the morning light glow upon the leaves that bear your name, Edera – Italian Ivy.I know, it is foggy now, but all the mist shall pass.You will see, it will be so quick – just the time of some coffee together, and this soft, white veil shall disperse in the October sky.

I know you want to follow it and go up, up…high up in the sky, and maybe watch me as I fret to prepare all this for you – for us. But, I pray to you, stay with me just a little longer. It took so long for you to get here. 93 years are far longer than I can imagine. Your eyes saw so much, and yet kept their enchanted, child-like glow.

I met so many people, you know? Most of the time, they were complicated people. But maybe it is life itself that is complicated, and there are so many things you do not know of the outside world. You only need few simple things to be happy. I can hear your voice on the phone, so happy that I called.
As you say ‘hi, love’, I can find in your slightly sorrowful voice the certainty that you brought kindness in this world, and you did so through your modest, quiet soul, and your child-at-heart attitude that has never left you.

I know you have to go, and I do not mean to keep you. It’s just that I am going to miss you so much, and I really wish you could stay a little longer… but I do not mean to be selfish, I figured out a while ago that everything is borrowed in this life.

Slender hands, blue eyes and copper-blonde hair are just a tiny part of what I inherited from you. There is a universe of love within me that will follow you wherever you go. Enjoy this new journey, dear grandma Eda.
I will stay a little longer, and listen to your voice in the rustling of the leaves.

I woke up hearing the rain pattering slightly on the windows, as to announce timidly the start of a new season and the end of an incredibly torrid and dry Summer.
The grass in the garden burned under the blistering sun at the beginning of August, and its green soft mantle turned into a yellow hispid clearing. The golden yellow, though, seems to make the trees stand out, still green and so loaded with fruit that their branches bend under the great weight they have to bear. Continue Reading

Paris wakes up early. The first light of dawn illuminates that intricate tangle of rooftops and chimneys, bringing a twinkling glow into its still deserted streets.
The morning smells of butter and freshly baked warm bread. I feel at home in this city where the clouds run always fast, I feel happy of that happiness we’d like to always have. A sense of freedom pervades my body with the same intensity and romanticism placed by Eugene Delacroix into the woman with the flag who is leading the people. Continue Reading

In the latter part of Venetian lagoon, where the water becomes stagnant and the flow enters the silent shoals, there is a precise point where the phone ceases to receive the signal.
Lately we have explored the lagoon with the FreakyBoat almost every evening and every time, in that precise spot, we took a look at the phone knowing it will be our last chance to post an instagram story.
In three different evenings, when we took the last look at the phone, I noticed some emails with a very promising object: the first was “August in Paris?”, the second was “Travel in The Netherlands” and the third was “Creative gathering in Venice”.Continue Reading

On the train which takes me back home after spending some days with my dear Valentina, I thought about the pictures I took before leaving and that are now waiting for me, in the messy folder of “unfinished things” on my desktop.
Lately, the summer light leads me to explore some new arrangements and corners of my home, but especially my beautiful garden that in this season turns into a kind of lush oasis where the plants give their best.
The golden light calls us outside our dark rooms only after 7 pm, when the air becomes lighter and the breeze – that smells like the lagoon – gently moves the higher tree tops.